Final Arguments Begin in Penn Trial : ‘He Shot the Gun for a Reason,’ Prosecutor Tells Jury

Sagon Penn intended to kill two San Diego police officers and a civilian observer when he grabbed a police revolver and pumped six bullets into them, Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Carpenter told a jury Monday during final arguments in the 12-week trial.

“He got the gun for a reason,” Carpenter said, in urging the jury to convict Penn on one count of murder and three counts of attempted murder. “He shot the gun for a reason and that was to kill Jacobs.”

Carpenter said Penn failed to kill Police Agent Donovan Jacobs only because of heroic life-saving efforts by paramedics and emergency room physicians.

“Then he went and he shot (Agent Thomas) Riggs three times, clearly indicating a deliberate and premeditated attempt on the life of Agent Riggs,” Carpenter said. “There was not one shot. There was not two shots there. There were three shots into Agent Riggs and . . . it was the third shot that killed Agent Riggs.”

Carpenter added that Penn clearly meant to kill Sarah Pina-Ruiz, the civilian ride-along who sat in the front seat of Riggs’ patrol car. The prosecutor said that, before shooting Pina-Ruiz twice, Penn looked at her and said: “You’re a witness . . . I’ve got to kill you too.”

And Penn moved in for the kill when he saw Jacobs lying wounded on the Encanto neighborhood driveway in Southeast San Diego by running over him with a police car, Carpenter contended.

“Either (Penn) was convinced he was dead and running over him would have no effect on Agent Jacobs, or he wanted to finish him off when he realized he had not done the job properly,” Carpenter said. “It’s obviously the latter because you have evidence . . . that Agent Jacobs was trying to get up.”

Defense attorney Milton Silverman insisted that his client acted in self-defense once Jacobs began beating Penn and using racial slurs.

As he began his phase of final arguments late Monday, Silverman described Carpenter’s assertion that Penn tried to kill Jacobs when he ran over him as “bizarre.” Silverman said that Penn, who had no other route to escape, slowed down the car as he left the driveway and made sure not to run over Jacobs with the tires.

If Penn had intended to kill Riggs, Jacobs and Pina-Ruiz, he would have fired six additional rounds contained in Riggs’ weapon, Silverman said. Instead, the 24-year-old Southeast San Diego man put the loaded weapon in his pants and fled in Jacobs’ car before turning himself in to police.

“Riggs was still alive when Penn left that body,” Silverman said. “What did Penn have in his hand? (Riggs’ handgun) with six bullets in it . . . Does he cock it, point it at (Riggs’) brain and blow his brains out and say, ‘That’ll show you, copper, for trying to mess with me.’ . . . He runs right by Jacobs and Pina-Ruiz with this weapon, six bullets in it.”

Silverman argued that Penn displayed extraordinary restraint by not using his expert karate skills to assault the officers as they struck him repeatedly with batons. Instead, Penn fended off the blows with his arms before Jacobs was able to get on top of him and land several punches to Penn’s head, witnesses testified.

Penn shot Jacobs in the neck once, turned and fired three shots at Riggs, and then looked into a patrol car and shot Pina-Ruiz twice. All six shots were fired in less than six seconds, according to evidence presented in the trial.

The shootings have heightened racial tensions in San Diego and damaged police relations within the black community, partly because the incident began when Jacobs mistook Penn for a street gang member.

Numerous witnesses have testified that Jacobs told Penn, “You think you’re bad, nigger . . . I’ll beat your black ass” as he sat atop him.

Testimony in the trial ended last week, and closing arguments began Monday. A television monitor was set up in an adjacent courtroom to provide extra seating.

The case is expected to go to the jury by the end of this week.

Carpenter addressed the jury first and began by noting the differences in style between the two attorneys.

“We’ve come a long way . . . ,” Carpenter said. “You’ve seen Milt Silverman get on the floor so much that he’s going to have to have patches put on the pants of his suit. You’ve seen me at times . . . make a jerk of myself.”

Carpenter was referring to his abrasive cross-examination on Thursday of Carolyn Cherry, a defense witness who secretly tape-recorded a conversation with Pina-Ruiz. In attempting to discredit Cherry, Carpenter said that Pina-Ruiz would refer to Cherry as “a liar” and questioned her motives in making the recording. The recording contradicted earlier testimony by Pina-Ruiz in which she denied discussing details of the shooting with Cherry.

The style and approach used by both attorneys in Monday’s final arguments were strikingly similar to those employed during their opening remarks.

Carpenter, who complained of a cold, stood at a lectern and consulted prepared notes as he reviewed statements by many of the nearly 150 witnesses who took the stand. The prosecutor methodically plowed through them in chronological order and recalled dozens of pieces of evidence, including diagrams, videotapes, clothing worn by the shooting victims and photographs of the scene.

Before ending the initial phase of his closing argument, Carpenter zeroed in on Penn’s frame of mind by selecting testimony that showed how the suspect wanted to kill all three of his victims.

Carpenter said that Penn moved the weapon as he shot Pina-Ruiz, who was turning inside the car in an attempt to find cover. He also recalled statements by two witnesses who said they heard Penn tell Pina-Ruiz “You’re a witness” before shooting her twice.

The prosecutor reminded the jury to consider the context of Penn’s statements, because the defense has contended that Penn never made the remarks to Pina-Ruiz. Pina-Ruiz testified that Penn did not say anything before firing the shots.

“I think you really have to take that statement in the context of what’s going on here,” Carpenter said. “The fact that there was a person in that car who was not identified as a police officer, who was not dressed as a police officer . . . He said, ‘I have to shoot you too, because you’re a witness’ . . . a witness. She was not wearing a police uniform . . . She was at that time doing nothing to hurt or harm him.”

Pina-Ruiz testified that Penn walked the police revolver up Jacobs’ chest until he put the muzzle on the officer’s neck. Carpenter argued that Penn went for the neck because Jacobs’ chest was protected by a bulletproof vest.

The prosecutor said bluntly that Penn tried to kill both Jacobs and Pina-Ruiz.

“The fact she lived had nothing to do with (Penn) . . . but the fact he missed a little bit,” Carpenter said. Pina-Ruiz was grazed in the side and the arm by the two shots.

Jacobs survived because of rescue efforts by paramedics and emergency room physicians, Carpenter said. As he did through much of the trial, the prosecutor described in graphic detail how blood was “oozing” from Jacobs’ neck when he arrived at Mercy Hospital.

Jurors also were urged by Carpenter to convict Penn on grand theft charges for stealing Jacobs’ police car and Riggs’ service revolver. He noted several times that, after the shootings, Penn nudged Riggs’ body with his foot and took his pistol.

Silverman used the same flamboyant style that has served him so well in other highly publicized murder cases. He banged a police night stick on a file cabinet to illustrate the force used by officers in striking Penn and kicked the short wall in front of the juror’s box.

Pacing in front of the jurors’ box without notes, Silverman told the jury that he was operating at “a bit of a disadvantage” because the prosecution is permitted the final word in closing statements. Silverman could finish his arguments today.

Silverman began Monday by recalling the case of Daniel Hyde, a former San Diego reserve police officer who was convicted in 1983 of first-degree murder. Hyde had stolen a San Diego police car and concocted a scheme to stop his victim, Felix Olivier Jr., then kidnap and murder him, Silverman said.

“What causes me to pause in a case like that is the horror that Olivier must have felt when he looked into the eyes of the man that was approaching him and he realized that that man was not there to protect and serve, but to attack and to destroy,” Silverman said. “It’s the thing of which horror films are made.”

Silverman said Penn was confronted with similar circumstances when Jacobs pulled him over for no reason on March 31, 1985.

“What Sagon Penn was faced with was the fact there was an officer in front of him saying things to him, doing things to him that he didn’t understand and that he couldn’t believe,” Silverman said. “And his brain tried to adjust to the reality of what in the world was happening to him.”

Silverman told the jury it was not unusual for Jacobs to approach people he suspected to be heroin addicts, gang members or criminals in a hostile manner.

“I think Donovan Jacobs’ bias cuts across what I refer to as racial barriers,” Silverman said. “Donovan Jacobs is a fellow who has put a uniform on, who has pumped his muscles up and who thinks he can take anyone on in the world and beat his ass. And Donovan Jacobs is the kind of guy that if you don’t shuffle . . . or look at him just right, he will take his club out and hit you over the head with it.”

Silverman said that, if Penn had known that nothing could stop Jacobs, his client would have fallen down and given up. He asked the jury to imagine how frustrating it must have been for Jacobs to swing his night stick as hard as he could at Penn and not have any effect.

“It must have enraged Donovan Jacobs,” Silverman said. “Can you imagine how maddening this must be to somebody taking a stick as hard as you can and swinging it against somebody’s head and it goes off (Penn’s arms) like butter. (Penn) wasn’t trying to show this police officer up. He was trying to keep his skull from getting caved in.”

Silverman also attacked several prosecution witnesses who he said passed themselves off as experts when they had no business doing so. He cited Dr. Barbara Groves, a San Diego physician who testified that, based on Penn’s injuries, he was not beaten by police officers.

“I can’t understand somebody coming in and saying I’m a doctor . . . and giving you a bunch of baloney,” Silverman said.

Silverman told the jury that, while they have had three months to listen to evidence and will have as long as they like to decide the case, Penn had only “a few heartbeats” to decide what he was going to do.

“Mr. Carpenter has made much of the fact that there is an intent to kill here,” Silverman said. “And you have to find as to each victim--Jacobs, Pina Ruiz and Tom Riggs--that there was a specific intent to kill . . . not a reaction to somebody going for a gun. And if you can’t find that, you can’t find murder and you can’t find involuntary manslaughter.”